


Home Run

by jedichick04



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Baseball, F/M, Gen, Hints of Oliver/Felicity, Single Dad AU, Starling City Rockets, no island au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 09:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4175316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedichick04/pseuds/jedichick04
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was just a Starling City Rockets game with his son. He never saw his son’s matchmaking attempt coming. Oliver as Single Dad AU, with shades of Olicity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Run

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Oliver Queen Father’s Day Challenge on Tumblr, hosted by geniewithwifi. This is a mix of my own experiences at baseball games with my dad as a kid and watching way too many sappy Hallmark movies.

“Come on, Dad, we’re gonna be late!”

Oliver raised his eyebrow at his son even as he let Connor drag him through the crowded stadium concourse. “The game doesn’t start for another half hour. We’ve got plenty of time.”

Connor shook his head, causing the ill-fitting baseball cap to slid around his head. Oliver had tried to get Connor a hat that actually fit him, but Connor had flat out refused. He insisted that this one—one that had belonged to Oliver during his teenage years–had years of good luck in it, and it would help the Rockets win tonight. “There’s stuff that goes on before the game. Like you didn’t know. Just cuz you haven’t been able to come to the last few games doesn’t mean you haven’t been here before.”

“I didn’t know you took the half hour before the game so seriously,” Oliver replied, trying to push down the guilt that was trying to bubble up. Yes, he’d been working a lot lately, and yes, he’d missed out on the last few Rockets games their season tickets entitled them to, but he was here tonight, and that was what mattered. “Does that mean you want to skip dinner?”

Connor stopped so suddenly that Oliver nearly bowled right into him. “Are you talking about garlic fries?”

“Along with something a little more substantial, yes,” Oliver said. “But what would a trip to see the Rockets be without garlic fries?”

The guilt eased as Connor enthusiastically changed directions and headed for the nearest garlic fries stand—though they made a stop along the way for some of the stadium’s famous sausages. While the garlic fries were popular, the line moved quickly, and before long they were balancing their tickets, food, and drinks and heading to their seats behind home plate. They still made it for the first pitch, even if they missed some of the other things Connor had been talking about.

An uneventful first inning and a half passed by as Oliver and Connor devoured their food, and then the Rockets were up to bat in the bottom of the second. Oliver was just finishing up the last of his fries when Connor grabbed his arm. “Dad, look! It’s the peanut guy.”

“You’re hungry after eating all that?” Oliver replied wryly as he turned in his seat to glance up the aisle. He saw not just any peanut guy, but the one that Connor loved, who made fancy tosses behind his back and whatnot as he launched the warm bags of peanuts towards the people who bought them with surprising accuracy.

“There’s always room for peanuts,” Connor said seriously. Oliver chuckled and reached for his wallet, shaking his head even as he dug out the cash for the peanuts. He handed it to Connor and told him, “You want them, you get to wave him down.”

Connor’s grin lit up his face, and Oliver couldn’t help grinning in response. The truth was, he loved being a dad. When he’d accidentally gotten Sandra pregnant nine years ago, and when she’d defied his mother to tell him anyways, he’d been a selfish playboy. But he’d wanted to make a real go of being a dad, and somehow, it had worked out. He’d been forced to grow up, and even more so after his father died when the  _Queen’s Gambit_  went down in the North China Sea about a year after Oliver had found out he was going to be a dad. He’d finished college with a MBA and eventually took his “rightful place” at the company (how his mother referred to it, not Oliver—but he had to admit a certain satisfaction at taking the reins at his family’s company). And then four years ago, Sandra had been killed in a car accident, leaving Oliver as sole parent and guardian. That had forced Oliver to grow up even further, leaving the boy he’d been far behind as he focused on raising his son as best he could on his own.

Connor’s grin shifted into a look that promptly summed up all the exasperation an eight year old boy could feel. “I’ve done it before, Dad. Uncle Digg even trusted me to catch two last week.”

Oliver held back a laugh, sure that would have only earned him another exasperated look. “Okay. I trust you. Especially if Uncle Digg trusted you like that.”

Connor nodded with the solemnity that Oliver himself saw in the mirror. When the peanut guy came close, Connor expertly threw his hand up in the air and gestured he wanted one. He passed the money down the aisle as the peanut guy wound up to toss it.

And right as he went to release it, some teen on her cell phone walking by bumped into the peanut guy, sending the bag of peanuts wide, towards the seats in front of them Oliver started to reach for the bag as he heard Connors, “Oh no,” but instead of the bag hitting the heads of the people in front of them, it was neatly caught by one of the blonde women. “Here you go, buddy,” she said with a grin as she passed the bag to Connor, then glanced towards Oliver—and her smile froze. “Ollie?”

Oliver forced a smile as the old nickname grated at him. Aside from Thea, he hadn’t heard that particular name in a while. He didn’t think of himself as that boy anymore. And hearing it from the younger sister of his ex-girlfriend—the same ex-girlfriend he’d cheated on and ended up with a son—was particularly unwelcome. “Sara. Hi. How are you?”

“I’m good!” Sara Lance said brightly, recovering from the surprise faster than Oliver. She nudged the woman next to her. “Heard you’re the CEO now of Queen Consolidated. My friend here works in the IT department. She’s brilliant. You should look into promoting her.”

“Sara!” the woman hissed before she turned enough in her seat to see Oliver. Oliver caught her blue eyes widening behind her glasses. He smiled slightly as he introduced himself. “Hi. I’m Oliver.”

“I know who you are,” she said quickly before Oliver could continue. “You’re Mr. Queen.”

Oliver was caught enough off guard that his slight smile deepened into a real smile. “Nooo. Mr. Queen was my father.”

“Right, but he’s dead. I mean–” The woman was turning red as Sara giggled and touched her arm. She promptly shut up. Oliver wished she wouldn’t. He found the whole thing endearing.

“I’m Connor,” Oliver’s son piped up with a grin, sticking his hand out to the babbling blonde. “My teacher calls Dad ‘Mr. Queen.’ So you’re not the only one.”

“I’m Felicity,” the woman introduced herself. Oliver noticed the way she pushed her glasses up her nose and took a deep breath, even as she extended her hand out to Connor and took his smaller hand in hers. “It’s nice to meet you, Connor.”

“And I’m Sara,” Sara chimed in, shaking Connor’s hand after Felicity dropped it. “An old friend of your dad’s. Or at least, the younger sister of an old friend of your dad’s.” Her gaze shifted to Oliver for a moment, turning hard as she somehow managed to convey to Oliver that she knew just what had ended his and Laurel’s relationship, and how much she didn’t approve. There was a part of Oliver that found that ironic, considering he’d flirted with Sara back in the day and probably could have turned it into something more if he’d tried. Sara hadn’t done a good job of hiding her crush back then.

“Dad needs more friends,” Connor told Sara and Felicity. Oliver choked on the sip of Pepsi he took. “He spends his time at work or home with me. He’s got Aunt Thea and Uncle Digg and Aunt Lyla and Uncle Tommy–that’s it, isn’t it, Dad? He doesn’t ever go on dates, either.”

“Connor–” Oliver started, but was interrupted as the crowd erupted in cheers and shot to their feet. Oliver glanced towards the field, where the Rockets’s center fielder was just arriving at second base ahead of the ball. The girls turned at the same time, Felicity’s ponytail hitting Oliver in the chest as she spun. She was tiny in comparison to Oliver, but her personality was so much larger than that. She was saying something to Sara, a smile lighting up her face and completely distracting Oliver from the game–at least until Connor nudged him in the side as they sat back down.

“What?” Oliver whispered to his son. Connor just smirked and glanced towards Felicity. Oliver shook his head in response and tried to focus back on the game.

Only it was impossible to just focus on the game. Because Connor kept drawing Sara and Felicity into conversation, and they were responsive. Oliver was learning a lot about Felicity as the game went on. She’d gone to college at MIT (and was a huge Red Sox fan–something he wasn’t going to hold against her…as long as they weren’t playing against the Rockets). She grew up in Vegas, she loved computers, and she was a genius. An actual genius. Oliver didn’t have a clue about half of the things she was talking about, but he did love the way her blue eyes sparkled and her hands moved as she spoke.

By the time the sixth inning rolled around, Connor had nudged Oliver a countless number of times. He was starting to get a sore spot in his side. “Dad, can we go get ice cream now?” Connor asked as the Rockets got the third out in the top of the sixth. It was tradition for them to get ice cream now, before the crowds during the seventh inning stretch.

“Yeah, let’s go now,” he agreed, reaching down and adjusting Connor’s too-big hat as they stood up. As they made their way to the aisle, Oliver realized Connor wasn’t right behind him; he waited with a raised eyebrow as Connor raced to meet him on the stairs.

“I asked Sara and Felicity what they wanted, too,” Connor explained as they headed up to the concourse.

“Connor–” Oliver started, but his son just shook his head and shrugged.

“You keep smiling at Felicity,” his son informed him. “Even when she was talking about the new computers your work should get and all the techs and spec–Dad, you hate technology, and you were smiling like she was talking about the Rockets’s stats for the last thirty years.”

“I was not–”

“You totally were,” Connor replied cheerfully as they reached the ice cream stand. “You should ask her out to dinner.”

“I– _what_?” Oliver blinked at his son in confusion, wondering where the hell this matchmaking urge had come from. Yeah, Thea had been bugging him about needing more girls in the family, and Diggle had suggested that Oliver’s life was more than stable enough to think about dating again, but he hadn’t expected this from his eight year old son.

“You know. Dinner. The meal that comes after you get done with work but before you go to bed,” his son said matter of factly. “Hi. We want cookies and cream, Rocky Road, and two mint chocolate chips, all on cones, please.”

“You hate mint chocolate chip,” Oliver commented as he paid the vendor, pointedly ignoring the advice about asking out a woman he’d just met at a baseball game, a woman that was the friend of his ex-girlfriend’s little sister, who worked at his _company_. There were all sorts of messy things that could happen, not least of which involved his son, and why the hell was he still thinking about this?

“The mint chocolate chip isn’t for me,” Connor replied, thanking the vendor as he took the cookies and cream and the Rocky Road filled ice cream cones. “It’s Felicity’s favorite. Funny, right? She has the same bad taste as you.”

Oliver just shook his head at Connor and changed the subject as they headed back to their seats, asking him what his favorite play of the game had been. He most certainly did not notice how beautiful Felicity looked as he handed her the ice cream cone, or the way she babbled about stress eating her way through a whole carton of mint chocolate chip not long after starting at QC.

But when the Rockets won the game, and Connor initiated high fives with Oliver, Felicity, and Sara, Oliver couldn’t help catching Felicity’s eye. And when she commented on how great a kid Connor was, and how not-intimidated she was by the high and mighty CEO of Queen Consolidated now, the words were flying out of his mouth before he could stop them.

“Felicity…would you go to dinner with me?”

She froze, then looked carefully at him. “Like, on a date?”

Oliver nervously laughed, managing to stutter something out about how a dinner usually implied a date, and then Connor chimed in with, “My dad’s a bit slow, but yeah, he’s asking you on a date.”

“I’d love to,” Felicity said with a brilliant smile that Oliver answered with his own brilliant smile.

Connor gloated about it the whole way home, but Oliver didn’t care. He was genuinely happy. 


End file.
